CH 78.1

Chapter 78.1 – Tram’s Grave

The tram base station in Fengyang City was a large black building, which could be seen a few blocks away.

Next to the base station, there were more than a dozen large and small energy towers, standing like a small forest.

Before the thunderstorm, people were dismantling the core of the energy tower and transferring it to a large transport ship.

Most of the defensive forces and resources had been transferred to the main city, and there were not many people left in the city. After the thunderstorm arrived, all army forces would be transferred to the transport ship, and it must be protected at all costs.

On the base station side, the warriors who stayed behind the energy core were incapacitated and fell into a bitter battle.

When Shi Yuan arrived at the tram station, he saw dozens of green trams parked quietly, with rainwater rolling on the roof and glass, falling on the ground, and turning into butterflies.

A burst of heat suddenly broke out, and a bright flame-colored light lit up on the other side – the soldier was burning the butterfly with a flamethrower, probably the core was also there.

The fire curtain was intertwined with the water butterflies, and when the rain evaporated, a large area of white air rose and dissipated in the vast and dark sky.

Shi Yuan was thinking about scaring away the monsters, but just as he raised his tail, he saw a large number of butterflies gathering next to a tram.

They were wrapping something that looked humanoid, possibly one of the victims. The human also had a gun and a dozen brass-colored cartridges on hand.

More and more butterflies were gathering here.

Then, the body slowly stood up.

It was a female warrior, her face was full of rain, and her eyes were surging like clouds of color.

She was infected and was transforming.

Layers of butterflies fell on her and wrapped her like a gorgeous cloak, moving with the wind. At the same time, the pollution detector issued a high-frequency warning. The soldiers guarding the station couldn’t see her, but they understood that the threat was approaching. For a while, the firepower became more intense. They hesitated whether they should give up the remaining cores and evacuate directly.

And then the woman looked at Shi Yuan fixedly.

Shi Yuan said, “Hello.” He thought for a while, “This is the city, can you go somewhere else?”

The woman did not answer. A pious and fanatical light appeared on her face.

—It was that look again.

She looked at Shi Yuan intently, as if he were a god.

This reminded Shi Yuan of Shi Yi, the watcher who worked in the newspaper and killed his boss after being infected. He also had the same expression when he saw Shi Yuan.

Moreover, he also remembered… the monsters under the stage in his dream.

The woman said slowly: “Ah, you were here.”

Shi Yuan urged again: “Leave, go to the wasteland, go home.”

“No,” a black butterfly stopped on the woman’s cheek, “I don’t know where to go, there is no place for me.”

Shi Yi also said the same thing.

With a storm of butterflies, the woman walked up to Shi Yuan and whispered, “I see light in you, you are our… lighthouse.”

“What lighthouse?” Shi Yuan bent his tail in confusion.

He knew that the lighthouse was a kind of human building, located on the coast, shining light on the endless sea and guiding the direction of the ship.

The woman’s expression was blurred for a while, and she murmured, “Yeah, what lighthouse? You must know.”

Shi Yuan said, “No, I don’t know.” He said sincerely, “You think too highly of me, I haven’t even finished Sudoku until today, you have to make it clearer.”

The woman’s expression was still blurred. In her eyes, the part of being a “human” was rapidly disappearing, and soon, she was like an ordinary monster. The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and the butterflies seemed to be attracted by her and rushed to this area one after another.

Soon, the soldiers would not be able to hold on.

Shi Yuan said, “I’m sorry, but please leave here.”

He raised his tail high, burst his scales, and rushed the woman with a warning!

The woman took two steps back and looked at him incredulously, with an expression like… seeing her god speaking nicely and suddenly exploding.

He even threatened her with his tail up!

Shi Yuan shook his tail frantically, and the scales made a metal scraping sound. He said, “Go somewhere else!”

The woman paused for two or three seconds, turned around, and fled under the wraps of butterflies.

As soon as she left, she took away a large area of butterflies.

The situation immediately improved, and even the sound of gunshots was less.

There were several parking garages nearby, but no one was there. Shi Yuan didn’t want to be exposed to the soldiers, so he walked around nearby, shaking his tail and scaring away a few large groups of butterflies.

When he arrived at the fifth garage, a group of butterflies surrounded the periphery of the second floor. Shi Yuan walked through the garage in the dark, and as soon as he reached the second floor, he was hit by something cold behind his waist.

“Don’t move—” the man said in his ear, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot. How did you get here—”

“Old Song!” Another person next to him shouted, and a bright light swept across Shi Yuan’s face, stinging him so hard that he couldn’t open his eyes, “Old Song, calm down, isn’t this, isn’t this the person next to General Lu? We’ve seen him at the outpost!”

The man looked at Shi Yuan for a while, hesitated, and said, “Ah, ah, it seems… yes, but just now…”

The companion next to him interrupted again: “Don’t talk so much, the butterflies are coming.” He elbowed Old Song and gave Old Song a wink. Old Song was taken aback and put down his gun.

Shi Yuan regained his freedom, and by the light of the flashlight, he saw that the corner of the second floor was blocked by the cargo box. There was a strange smell on the cargo box, which was the smell of a masking agent.

There were many burnt butterflies on the ground, the two men were trapped here, struggling to survive.

Shi Yuan followed them, turned over a few cargo boxes, and entered the narrow space.

There were two guns and flamethrowers mounted on the cargo box, aimed at the outside, forming a simple line of defense. There was a long and narrow glass window on the outer wall facing the base station, where they could see the trams and other garages, and countless water butterflies thumping against the glass.

A lot of the butterflies outside were driven away by Shi Yuan so the two of them had a chance to breathe. Shi Yuan heard their names, the one who pointed a gun at him was called Old Song and the other was Major Ke.

Old Song said to Shi Yuan, “We will stay here first and later find a chance to gather with the big unit in garage 7.”

Major Ke took a gun, looked out of the glass window, and said, “I don’t know if they can stabilize it.” He took out his communicator and there was an ear-piercing rustling sound inside, “This monster thunderstorm is so evil, even the communications are down.”

Old Song’s face was solemn: “Why hasn’t the signal been restored yet?”

“There is no sign of recovery.” Major Ke put away the communicator, “It’s really f*cking evil, we just happened to be stuck when there was no one in the data center…”

Shi Yuan was listening next to him, and when he heard the words, he asked, “What does it have to do with the data center?”

Old Song hesitated to speak and looked at Major Ke.

Major Ke replied to him: “The dispatch center was originally in the northern district. Since the “Heat Hurricane’ destroyed the northern district, the dispatch center was moved to the top floor of the data center. At that time, the idea was that the data from the dispatch center could be given directly to the researcher, and if there was any problem, the researcher would just take an elevator to the top floor and find someone to get another copy of the data.”

The butterflies were still hitting the glass, and he continued to explain: “Everyone is withdrawing to the main city. An hour ago, the last group of dispatchers and researchers left – the data center is far from the mooring of the transport ship, and they must evacuate first. Who would have thought of it? There was a sudden thunderstorm and the military communicator was suddenly not available. It is estimated that communication can only be restored if the master control facility of the dispatch tower is activated.”

“Don’t you think it’s f*cked up? Originally, in another half hour, all of us would have been able to leave, but now we can’t contact the other troops, and we don’t know what instructions General Lu has. We’re just guarding the energy core here like headless flies.”

Shi Yuan leaned in front of the glass.

Major Ke reached out and pointed, “There is the data center.”

Shi Yuan saw a tower-like building in the distance, the whole body was off-white. It stood silently in the rain curtain, pointing directly at the iron-blue sky, without any light, like some kind of weird creature that turned white after death.

Shi Yuan asked, “Can’t Alice control it?”

“Alice?” Major Ke was taken aback, “Oh, you’re talking about that AI. In the end, she’s just a piece of program, the dispatch tower needs to manually open the permission or must have a real person present.”

“Oh,” Shi Yuan said.

Old Song looked at him: “Do you know where General Lu is?”

Shi Yuan shook his head. But he was not very worried about his humans. Lu Tinghan told him that generally speaking, the commander would be in a safe place.

Butterfly-shaped lightning exploded in the clouds again, the thunder was earth-shattering, and torrential rain poured down.

The butterflies increased again, and Shi Yuan saw through the glass that the No.7 garage was ablaze with heavy flames, and the soldiers were still holding their ground. The communication was disrupted, and no one knew when the reinforcements would come, or… whether they would come.

Shi Yuan wanted to find an excuse to leave and continue to intimidate the monsters with his tail.

He looked out the window a few more times, but inexplicably had a strange thought: from here, looking down, he could see most of the base station, including… the location where he and the woman were talking.

But he was not so sure, he suspected that he remembered the wrong place or the two did not see at all – otherwise, how could they seem to have no reaction?

He looked back and happened to meet Old Song’s eyes.

Old Song quickly looked away and pulled his cheeks, as if smiling.